3D Printing COVID-19 Response, 4/10

Delivered April 11th, 2020. Contributors: Toyoabasi E., Uche M. and

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3D Printing COVID-19 Response, Pt. 1, 4/10

The 3D printing industry updates concerning the impact of COVID-19 on the industry within the past seven days include partnerships between companies such as Neurophotometrics and Markforged and BONE3D and Stratasys, a new initiative by Materialise, and the Stopgap 3D mask by 3D Systems. We also identified a report about the successful production of protective visors by the University of Liverpool.

University of Liverpool

On the 3rd of April 2020, Engineers at the University of Liverpool announced that they have successfully produced protective visors for use in local hospitals through their experience in laser cutting and 3D printing technology.

According to a publication by the University, "the protective visors, developed in conjunction with NHS staff at local hospitals (including the Royal Liverpool University Hospital, Broadgreen Hospital, Aintree University Hospital, and Southport & Ormskirk Hospital Trust), use a hybrid design approach with a laser-cut top section and a 3-D printed bottom section."

The Laser cutting technology used helped reduce the time of production from six hours to 30 minutes, while the local industry is helping to orchestrate production.

In alignment with the implementation of the printers, the hospital has developed a customized 3D printing platform at 3dcovid.org to help fast-track requests for 3D-related projects from medical practitioners within Paris and its surroundings.

An image of the Stopgap mask design is provided herein, also with an image of the finished work.

New Initiative from Materialise

On the 6th of April, Materialise announced that it had developed a solution to assist with the delivery of oxygen at high positive pressure in the absence of a ventilator.

According to the company, “a 3D printed connector converts standard equipment already available in most hospitals into a non-invasive PEEP mask (NIP) that can be connected to the oxygen supply (to facilitate breathing for coronavirus patients).”

The new design offers patients additional time before a mechanical ventilator is required for treatment and also help with transitioning them off ventilators earlier, in order to free up the ventilators for critical patients.

Greg Mark, the chief executive at Markforged, opined that the swabs were produced to help meet with the shortage in supply being experienced by hospitals and also to curb the report about false swabs available in the market.

With the help of the “San Diego COVID Research Enterprise Network (SCREEN) Initiative, a group of scientists, students, research institutions, and others in the San Diego area — Neurophotometrics, Rady Children’s Hospital-San Diego, the Scripps Research Institute, and the University of California San Diego designed and tested the 3D printed swabs with fifty volunteers.”

A retest was carried out on COVID-19 positive patients three to fourteen days after their first diagnosis with both the 3D printed swab and the commercial swab. The test with the commercial swab detected the presence of the virus in most patients, while all the 3D printed swabs tests returned positive, confirming the high efficiency of the 3D printed swab.

3D Printing COVID-19 Response, Pt. 2, 4/10

Stratasys, Protolabs, Materialise, and HP, are actively communicating their initiatives in response to COVID-19 via such channels as social media, press releases, and feature articles on third-party websites. Xerox, on the other hand, has not mentioned anything specific to the 3D printing space concerning its response to COVID-19.

Stratasys

Within the past week, Stratasys has made three COVID-19 related posts on Facebook. In the first two posts on April 9, the company expressed that it is proud to be working with Solid Energy SRL and Blue Origin in the fight against COVID-19. These posts have received 16 and 65 reactions, respectively.

In its latest Facebook post, the company has called for more submissions for the #CoVentChallenge on GrabCAD, announcing that more than 20 mechanical ventilator designs have been submitted.

Stratasys has made nine posts about its initiatives in response to COVID-19 on Twitter in the past week. The first two posts are the same posts about submissions for the #CoVentChallenge on GrabCAD its partnership with Blue Origin as posted on its Facebook page.

It thanked Boom Supersonic for using Stratasys' 3D printers in its fight against COVID-19.

Stratasys tweeted its only blog post in the past week in response to customer inquiries, stating that it conducted an evaluation and found minimal biocompatibility risk in the use of 3D-printing material for parts in respiratory and ventilator equipment.

The company retweeted ULA's tweet, which stated that ULA is working with Project C.U.R.E and Stratasys in the fight against COVID-19. The company also thanked Bayer US for working with it to fight COVID-19.

Stratasys retweeted about its partnership with UCF and Orlando Health and about how Indycar teams are working with Stratasys in response to COVID-19.

Protolabs

Protolabs has continued to use the hashtags "ProtolabsPROUD" and "fightcovid19" in its COVID-19 posts in the past week. It has made five unique posts about its initiatives in response to COVID-19 via its social media pages (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn).

Materialise

On April 6, following its only press release in the past week, the company posted about its 3D-printed, non-invasive solution to mechanical ventilators in light of the shortage in the supply of ventilators during the COVID-19 pandemic, garnering 206 reactions on Facebook so far, with 25 likes and 17 retweets on Twitter, and 163 reactions and three comments on LinkedIn.

Most recently, it posted about its partnership with Prusa Research 3D printers for the rapid production of face shields during this pandemic. The post on Facebook has garnered 26 likes and four shares in less than 24 hours, with nine like and four retweets on Twitter.

HP

On LinkedIn, the company posted a replay of an interview, which Ramon Pastor, the interim president of HP 3D Printing and Digital Manufacturing, had on Digital Trends Live about how HP 3D Printing's efforts to contain COVID-19. The post has garnered 663
reactions and 11 comments so far.

HP last updated the page on its website that is dedicated to its 3D-printing efforts to contain COVID-19 on April 4, but it appears that there has not been any new info related to its 3D printing initiatives in the past week.

In the past week, the company has not posted about COVID-19 in relation to 3D printing on Facebook and Twitter, and its most recent YouTube video on 3D printing is unrelated to COVID-19.

Xerox

Within the past week, Xerox has not mentioned anything specific to the 3D printing space in relation to its response against COVID-19. This was concluded after searching through its website, social media pages (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube), as well as third-party sites.